The filling of public landfills has become a topic of significant concern. Some communities have passed ordinances restricting the dumping of lawn refuse into landfills while others now restrict the dumping of plastic materials. While lawn waste and plastic refuse are only two of the materials of concern, these are among the most prominent. The present invention addresses the segregation of plastic and paper bags containing lawn refuse and separate handling of the yard waste and the plastic and paper bags, allowing the bags to be recycled.
It is considered to be desirable to have an apparatus which will automatically open and remove the bag from the material, such as lawn waste, which the bag previously contained. Prior devices and apparatuses have been developed in an attempt to meet this objective. These prior devices and apparatuses have generally included a holding chamber for the yard waste and the use of an auger which mangled the bag and was intended to separate the trash from the bag.
The present invention is an apparatus for opening and removing bags from material that are loaded on a conveyor which then feeds the bags and material into a housing assembly. The housing assembly has slicing and slitting assemblies for cutting open the bags filled with material. Paddle wheel assemblies are used to press the bags and material against the slicing and slitting assemblies and retard and assist in moving the bags and material to the discharge conveyor. The slitting assembly has notched disks that slit the bags which allow a bag stripping assembly to remove the bags from the material. The bag stripping assembly places the removed bags on top of the material as a discharge conveyor carries the material out of the enclosed housing assembly. An operator then easily removes the bags while the material is carried by the discharge conveyor to a discharge end for loading onto a dump vehicle.